Mercury
by Writer Awakened
Summary: Fourth in my "Dodekatheon" story series. Delita. FFT Writing Circle Challenge III Entry. How time and circumstance can drastically CHANGE a story. A serious parody of the events in FFT.


_Mercury_

Or,

_One Who Changes_

-

_The butterfly, obstinately enduring in the light_

_Caught between frozen layers of illumined night_

_Dances perilously, tittering on the edge of dark_

_Wherein he received his damning, slashed mark_

_The vulture, caught in tender hooks of misdirection_

_Turned to oaths and swears, gripped by affection_

_And in the glean of war and swarm of carrion we_

_See a bird afraid of what is soon to be_

-

**Part I (of II): _The Beginning and the End_**

-

"Whoa!" shouted the man, tugging on the reins of his chocobo. "Whoa, Quicksilver! Easy! Easy, you damned beast!"

The man slowed the forward charge of his mount and walked it to the edge of the lake, a wide mouth of water maybe the size of a small castle. The edges of the lake were marshy, to the point where the man had to brush aside large reeds just to step his feet into the water's edge. First, the man removed his armor plating and his robe. Then, without even bothering to remove his greaves, he waded in, sloshing through accompanied by the most disgusting and laborious of sounds. After a few minutes of searching, he saw a familiar arrangement of reeds and reached down into the swampy waters. He quickly retrieved a long, wooden object from its place submerged under the depths, and wiped it relatively clean with his vest. It was a wooden flute, familiar to the man and yet strangely distant, and when he held the cleaned instrument in his hand a freakish chill surged through his body, as though he were holding something from another world.

"Argus…" the man said at last. "I wonder if you remember…when we used to sit and play this." The man lifted the flute to his lips and began to play, on-key even after a six-year respite.

-

_Six Years Earlier…_

-

"Blimey! You'd think you'd know better than to do something stupid like that, Ramza!" Argus, the young noble, looked to his right.

The young man with the sun-blond hair, Ramza, shook his head. A bloodied smallsword was stashed in his belt.

"Honestly, how was I supposed to know that area of the plains would be flooded with thieves? I was just looking to improve my skills. Just training with my brothers isn't enough. I have to fight a real fight."

The three boys walked through the streets of Garland, the Magic City, inseparable, after having become fast friends at the Royal Magic Academy. The first boy, a gentry transferring in from Ruofon in the province of Limberry, had learned the nuances of the city well, after first resisting them. His name was Argus Sadalfas, a crack shot with a bowgun, cadet in the Marquis' personal Aegis Knight brigade, whose family was renowned in Limberry as "most honorable and dedicated knights". When the boys first met Argus had serenaded the group with tales of his proud father Hermes Sadalfas, his loyal mother Diana Sadalfas (nee Irondell), and of his desire to equal their legacy.

The second boy had a brilliant mind for tactics, a keen yet subtle wit, and was easy to anger, especially at perceived injustices. His name was Delita Heiral, a farmhand and the adoptive son of Balbanes Beoulve, and thus the adoptive brother of Ramza Beoulve, the third boy. The three friends were nigh inseparable, Argus fitting in snugly with the two longtime friends, after swiftly delivering the message that he would "be their friend", and a "good one, at that!"

"We know," Argus continued, paying little attention to the people passing by or the myriad chickens that had inexplicably began running amok through the town square, "that you _cannot tell a lie_, Ramza, so we believe you."

Delita chuckled. "Yeah. But you'd better not do that again. Don't you have a penchant for getting into trouble? Even if you can '_not tell a lie_'!"

"All right, all right," Ramza said, playful but feeling a bit chided. "I won't. Still, I should be able to go out without having to rely on someone to protect me. What would my brothers say would they have to mollycoddle me my entire life?"

"They would leave you be if you asked them," Delita said. He shrugged, walking between the two nobles nonchalantly, utterly comfortable in their presence. "After all, you are only their half-brother, is that right?"

"Delita!" Argus said. He gritted his teeth, pushing Delita's left shoulder firmly with a flat hand. "Don't you dare say something like that, especially not in public! Don't ever chide a noble on their blood, you scamp. He is still a Beoulve, isn't he? Then it doesn't matter. Don't be so inconsiderate."

"Argus," Ramza said, "it's nothing. Forget about it."

In the city square, four small aqueducts running at ninety-degree angles converged at a fountain: The messenger angel of Glabados faith, the winged mortal who ascended and spread the word of God to the people on Ajora's behalf. Three children dressed in gray rags sat on the edge of the white marble fountain, by their proximity a family; the two sisters wore what looked like rags of dancing clothes, and the brother wore a tattered, dirty, spoony bard's robe. The two girls danced and spun awkwardly, and the brother played on a filthy wooden flute, half off-key, half on. None of them seemed more than thirteen.

"Please, please, sirs, do you like our music?" The bard looked up at the boys passing by. He smiled and tried fruitlessly to play better. "Do you like our show, sirs?"

Ramza fished through his pockets for a hundred gil, and Delita donated fifty. As they walked away from the fountain, Argus made ever sure to not catch their glances.

"Argus," Ramza said, looking at him. "Why didn't you give anything?"

"Me? I don't even know them!" Argus said. "Why would I want to be their friend? Besides I—I cannot be seen giving to beggars. It wouldn't be good…for me. Anyway, if they cannot even afford to bathe themselves monthly or change their clothes, they don't even deserve to be called commoners. At least some commoners have worth."

Delita kicked at the ground awkwardly as he walked, and muttered an inaudible "thank you".

The three boys passed near a row of storefronts. In front of one, Ramza stopped to look. "Well, I was supposed to be returning home to my brothers, but, seeing as we are here—" Ramza gestured to the facade of Tran-Kuja's Odd Antiques—"do you want to have a gander?"

Delita and Argus shared a look, and in unison yelled, "Aye!"

-

Together, the three noble boys learned of the plot to kidnap the marquis of Limberry, and together, after a subtle tip from Ramza's elder brother Zalbag, they journeyed to the Trade City of Dorter, and eventually into the desert, wherein they found the kidnapped Marquis Elmdor and witnessed a disturbance in the ranks of the Death Corps. A consummate friend, Ramza was forced to restrain Argus from rushing after Wiglaf, the principle leader of the Death Corps.

"Let me go, Ramza!" Argus cried. "I'll avenge this misdeed, this slight to the honor of Limberry, I'll kill the God-hating rat, I swear it, I swear it!"

In the days to follow, when their travels directed them to Igros again, Argus told his two friends more of his father, an influential figure during the Fifty Years' War, and of his grandfather, who was, by chance, saved from captivity by his allies, whom he had sworn never to betray. He told them of his admiration of the "Silver Noble", Marquis Mesdoram Elmdor, the brilliant silver-haired tactician, warrior and general who had brought glory to the territory of Limberry. He told them of his loyalty to his land of Limberry, and consequently, of the burning, heart-rending desire to leave there and travel elsewhere, settling on the Academy at Garland, which he quickly accustomed to. When the Marquis was captured, said Argus, a feeling inside his stomach turned on, telling him to save his beloved lord, the man who made unwavering patriotism enticing.

In return, Delita Heiral told Argus a little of the story with which he and Ramza were intimately familiar, about losing his birth parents to the Plague at an early age, about his love of Balbanes as a surrogate father ("Ramza," he had said on many occasions, "You should have called me when Father was on his deathbed," to which Ramza would reply, "Well, I had barely arrived in time myself!"), and of his friendship with Ramza. He explained how several years after his parents died, the majority of the horses he cared for fell ill and were promptly euthanized amidst a shower of his tears. Two years ago, Delita explained, the remaining few horses had succumbed and were killed, presumably—he noted with passionate disgust—to be used as a shady butcher's second-hand wares. It was his understanding, as he was told, that horses as a means of transport had evaporated almost completely with the advent of advanced chocobo breeding and war training. "I still hate riding chocobos," he said. "But if I had to choose one to ride into battle with, it would be a wild one; they're tougher."

Lastly, Ramza told of his story, about his relationship with his half-brothers Dycedarg and Zalbag Beoulve, his beloved and revered little sister Alma, and his half-sister, the forgotten child, the "perfect child" who came and went and monopolized her father's attentions, Mary.

"You've not told me much about her," Delita said at a point, when their path took them through a clear field southeast of Igros. "You talk about your brothers as if they are the highest, most respectable people in this world, and you talk about your sister as if she were a goddess, but what of your half-sister Mary?"

And the answer, of course, was, "I don't want to talk about it! Is that enough?"

And the rest of his tale was told about the friendship between Delita and him, and how—Ramza slapped a hard hand on Delita's shoulder—their friendship would never end, even in the years to come, when they both were married and had successful positions. Argus, tinged with extreme jealousy sometimes peaking at points of the conversation, was placated when Ramza and Delita turned to him and insisted that now the _three_ of them would certainly be friends forever.

Returning to the castle, the three boys were scolded by Ramza's elder brother Dycedarg for their pursuit of the Marquis' captors, and informed of the hideout of a group of thieves. At the hideout, the head of the hideout's particular group, Milda, was defeated by the three boys and their loyal companions, and she was left to stand alone amongst the field of her blindly loyal comrades' bodies.

"Ramza!" Argus yelled, as the young woman began to slink away.

"Ramza…" Delita turned to watch their defeated foe. "These people are no different than I am…why does it have to be this way?"

"Well, we can't just leave her! She's our enemy! She tried to kill us! How is she any different than the rest of them?" Argus insisted.

"I don't know," Ramza said. "I want to protect my family, so I don't know why I can't…"

"Hmph…just do it," Milda said, her knees scraping against the wooden planks at her feet. She stood up weakly, still shuddering madly in the cold rain. "All you nobles are the same. Letting us all live like dogs while you sit back and beat us down with your belts. Don't pretend like you actually care, you patronizing scum." She limped along, coughing. "You'll regret letting me live."

Argus looked at Ramza. "What are you waiting for? This is a fine time to be having an attack of conscience! She tried to kill you, me, Delita. She'll try to kill all of us with noble blood, and everyone who stands with them! Why isn't anyone _listening _to me? Aren't you both my friends?"

Delita lowered his head, mumbling. "Just a commoner…like me. What that I would end up like her…"

The defeated woman limped along through the cold slashes of rain and wind until she fell onto all fours, cursing audibly, panting, favoring her ribs. Smoke still rose from her body, vestiges of a casting of Fira washes away by the rainfall. A streak of blood ran down her cheek from her forehead. Eventually, painfully conscious of the noble eyes glaring her down, she put her hands against the cold ground and lifted. "You'll pay," Milda said, finally standing on two feet. "We'll get our revenge for all our humiliation. You'll be forced to listen to us! We'll kill you all."

Ramza looked up. His eyes turned from Argus to Delita then to Milda and a cold lump formed in his throat, the same puffy little beast that shouted at thieves and rebels to die in obscurity. "Then…I'm sorry," Ramza said, barely audible through the wind. "I can't let-" He strode towards Milda, drawing his sword, charging forward. At the last possible second he pinned his eyes shut.

"What—?"

"Ramza!" Delita shouted, as Ramza ran the Death Corps soldier through on his blade. She slumped over and cursed his name with her last breath, falling to her knees, looking at him with her dead eyes, then she hit the ground.

"Ramza!" Delita repeated. "Why…"

"She would have called reinforcements and tried to kill us again," Ramza said. "I—I couldn't let them try to hurt us—to hurt my brothers—hurt you—to—to—"

"You did the right thing," Argus said, looking away. "She wasn't willing to work for anything. She wanted to kill us and take everything from us, we nobles who earned it for ourselves over generations. They're all selfish and don't understand how _we _feel."

"Why?" Delita repeated, kneeling over Milda's body as Ramza sheathed his sword. "Why, why..."

"She can call us murderers all she wants, but _she _tried _to kill _us!" Argus said. "Where's the sense in sparing her for that? What's so just about anarchy? She didn't even ask to be spared!"

"You don't—"

"Don't be a fool, Delita!" Argus interrupted. His eyes welled with tears. "Doesn't anybody realize that this is what we had to do? Don't think this could have been avoided by sparing her life, she just would have tried to kill us again, she would have gotten us, chopped off our heads, put us on stakes to show the whol world our corpses, dammit, dammit, don't you _realize _that?-!"

"Is that true…" Delita said, looking down at his hands. The rain was quieting. He spoke slowly. "Is that all anybody does? We…Ivalice just got over a fifty-year long war, and now this? Everyone thought that at last we wouldn't have to see any more innocent people die. Is this the best we can do?"

"The only people to trust are those who know what they're talking about," Argus said, wiping his eyes with his sleeves, and he looked away. 'That's me, Ramza, and yes, even you, Delita, even though you're—one of them. But listen to your brothers, Ramza, Delita. They're of the high noble class. They'll take care of everything for you."

Ramza and Argus turned and left, with Delita close behind, rubbing his forehead, his farmer's boots splashing and sloshing through the unavoidably large puddles on the way.

-

When the three boys returned, they learned of the attack by the Death Corps on Igros Castle, and that Delita's sister, Teta, had been abducted. Delita, distraught with the news, stormed out of the castle followed closely by his two friends.

"Delita!" his two friends shouted, giving chase.

"You know my brother will do everything he can to help her," Ramza said, while Argus pragmatically insisted that it was implausible that a member of the noble Beoulve family would set aside their pursuit of the rebels specifically to save a commoner, as precious as she was.

"Damn you!" Delita shouted, rushing at Argus, restrained by Ramza, punching Ramza in the chest, kicking through the air at his head as he acted out a vicious parody of himself. "Damn you!" and he grabbed Argus by the collar.

"Have you gone mad?" Argus said, hand on Delita's wrist. He struggled to breathe. "What's—gotten into you?"

"She's my sister, damn it!"

"She'll be found then!" Argus said. "Let go."

Delita released his grasp on Argus' collar. "Damn, you'd better be right. Argus—no, Ramza! You'd better be correct about your precious brothers! Would they really do anything to help you?"

"Delita, calm down. Argus, don't—"

"If you'd not be so histrionic about it," Argus said, trailing off, shrugging. "Maybe his brothers would indeed do him a favor and save his commoner friend's sister. I don't know, why are you bothering _me _about it? They pray to God like every good person does, so why are you so afraid?"

"Oh, oh!" Delita said. He had walked to the end of the stone road, some fifty feet away, then stopped and turned around. "For you, a noble like you, to say that! _You_ don't honestly believe God shows commoners any quarter, do you?"

"What—"

"Oh, oh, and—" Delita interrupted, and he shrugged sardonically, the peeking sun and faint rainbow overhead mocking his impatience. "—and you'd say 'animals have no God', or something stupid like that, because that's all we are to you—animals!"

"I'm not that misbehaved!" Argus yelled. He looked quickly over to Ramza, who stood meekly. "I would never say a thing like that, not in front of you, my friend. If I knew you less I'd think you a manners-depraved lout without—"

"Enough!" Delita yelled. "My sister needs me. I trust you two, but I don't trust any one else to come to my side. If no one will help, then I'll just help myself." Argus shared a look with Ramza as Delita stormed away. Ramza shrugged, insisted that he needed to speak with his brothers further, and withdrew into the castle.

"What is it that makes _these_ commoners so different?" Argus wondered, standing alone in the sun. "That makes them so different from all the other so-called 'trash'? I guess I'm to find out," and he ran in pursuit of Delita.

-

That day passed by quickly. Running as fast as his short, spindly legs could carry him, Argus found Delita sitting on the Mandalia Plains with his head in his hands.

"I've come to deliver a message," Argus said, sitting next to him. "A spy reported seeing your sister and her captors near Fovoham Plains, heading towards Fort Zekeden."

"Zekeden?" Delita said quietly, throwing a stone onto the plains. He turned and looked at the noble boy. "Isn't that one of Gallione's primary gunpowder stores?"

"I don't know. I heard it from Lord Dycedarg. In any case, I suppose I should help you save your sister."

"I was thinking," said Delita. He sat back on his hands, staring off onto the horizon, where the sun was falling away in bursts of orange and red. Delita wondered if Teta were watching the same sunset, but mentioned nothing of the sort. "If I were stronger, if I were a general…I'd be able to save Teta."

"Why, I would wager on it, even!" Argus exclaimed. "You're not like…all the rest." He pulled a large bundle of grass from the ground at once and scattered it haphazardly on the evening wind. Delita sat beside him, introspective, plucking grass blades one-by-one and halving them.

"I think," Argus continued, "that you can rescue Teta. In fact, this might be an opportunity for both of us. No one at Limberry would believe I rescued the marquis, but maybe if I'll do this I'll garner some recognition. It's not easy living in someone's shadow."

"I see," Delita said, staring at the ground. Then, "Is that what Ramza feels like?"

Argus shrugged. "I don't know," said he at last. His voice rolled on, without losing a bit of its prideful enthusiasm. Everything he said—as understood by his audience—was true, without question, simply because of the way he spoke, as if he were the bearer of truth himself and was unable to be incorrect. "But he's spoiled silly. His brothers do everything for him. I wouldn't be surprised if he's lapping at his brothers' feet right now. He's not like you or me."

"Hm."

"I have something," Argus said, fishing through his pockets. He retrieved two identical wooden flutes, painstakingly carved and stained a rich mahogany. "Here, take one."

Argus handed a flute to Delita and took one for himself. "When I was just a tiny rascal I used to play grass-whistles, but as I got older my parents said it wouldn't do, and bought me this. When I told them the first one was broken, they bought me a new one—that'll be our little secret, hm? Go on, try it."

Delita put the flute to his lips, and Argus did the same, and they played until the sun set and it was time to make camp for the night.

-

On the road, time passes and flitters away, and though time spent traveling consumes most of a man's life, it is usually not so important as to remember.

On reaching Fort Zekeden, amidst a raging snowstorm, time twisted and slowed.

Delita and Argus pressed themselves against the side of a stone building and crept along. They could hear the sounds of soldiers marching, two familiar voices, one unfamiliar one from above them. Delita inched further along until he could see two figures across the field, and two figures above him: One, a member of the Death Corps trembling and wavering, and Teta.

"Teta! Sister!" Delita shouted, and Argus implored him to be quiet.

"Don't come any closer!" the man of the Corps yelled. "There's enough gunpowder in this fort to blow us all to Hell and back! Come any closer and you'll regret it. I'll tell you what I want. You—"

"Shut up!" It was Ramza's brother, Zalbag, who stood beside Ramza. Delita and Argus watched, stupefied, as Ramza held a crossbow up and readied it.

"We won't negotiate with common terrorists and thugs!" Zalbag yelled. Then, in a softer voice, to Ramza, "Go on, Ramza, do it, and be done."

"B-Brother, I—"

"Do it, Ramza, or he'll kill us all! Are you mad?"

Ramza lifted the crossbow. Delita stood there, immobile, holding his breath, fists clenched. Ramza wouldn't dare do such a thing—he couldn't do such a thing. To shoot a crossbow at the man while he was holding Teta to his chest, no, no, Ramza would never risk such a thing. Argus, however, was not surprised when Ramza shot the arrow that pierced Teta through the heart. It was a direct order from his elder brother, something little Ramza could never disobey, even if he didn't believe in what they were aspiring for. After all, for all his attitude and bravery, he was only a goody-goody.

"Teta!" Delita screamed as Teta slumped over. He watched as the Death Corps soldier recoiled and staggered back, retreating into the fortress. Behind him, Argus scoffed and shook his head, muttering to Delita something that might have been condolences.

"Take care of the rest, Ramza," Zalbag said, and he left. Ramza stood alone, holding the bow in his hands limply at his side. When he looked up, his old friend Delita was walking towards him, followed by Argus who scurried to keep up.

"Ramza! You! How—how could you?"

"I didn't have a choice!" Ramza yelled. "That lunatic, he—he was going to kill—going to kill us all, and Zalbag—"

"To hell with Zalbag!" Delita screamed. He stood right before Ramza, his face looking harshly at him, cold tears streaking down his dirty face into his gritted teeth. "To hell with him! Why did _you_ do that, Ramza? Teta! My little sister, you killed my little sister!"

"Delita, I…I…" Ramza took a step back. Before he could think he whirled around, tripped and fell on hands and feet, stood up, and ran, past his elder sister Mary, who put her arm around his shoulder as he ran, looking back at the two boys through golden locks of hair with the utmost contempt.

Delita climbed the steps and cradled his sister in his arms.

"Delita! Delita!" Argus shouted. "Don't just stand there, or—"

Then, an explosion from the direction of the fort, and the entire ground trembled. Argus screamed "Delita!" again at the top of his lungs, but his voice, lost to the great noise of the explosion, went unheard. Before the sound of the fort exploding could reach Argus' ears he saw flames burst around Delita's body, seemingly swallowing him alive. For a moment, Argus' faith that God would punish only the sinful in flames was shattered, as it looked like, without any provocation, his body had spontaneously combusted. Then the explosion engulfed the entire fort in flame and time burst away.

-

_Six Years Later…_

-

"Delita…or should I say…_King_ Delita?"

"Ar-Argus?" Delita rose to his feet and whirled around. The tall reeds obscured his vision, but there was no mistaking that voice. "Argus! It's-it's you! After all this time! So you survived?"

Argus shrugged. His grin, sharp and silvery as Delita knew it from memory, was instead melancholy and subdued. He had dulled in the last five years, Delita could tell. He wore naught but gray, with a grayed-out beige coat over his person. He still bore the distinct scar on his right cheek, and the slick blond hair that punctuated his old, "clean" character. He had grown taller but was still awkward-looking, his arms hanging down at his side like spindly branches.

"I've come to bring you a message. I'm the messenger, right?"

"After all this time, no pleasantries? Well…ah…well then," Delita stepped forward through the marsh, to the dry plain where Argus stood, immobile. The king still clutched the wooden flute tightly in one hand, in preparation to present an object of the past to a long-lost friend. "What is the message?"

"Do you recall your first decree as king, 'sire'? You called an end to all peerage in Ivalice, and you ordered all noble families to discard their status and forfeit a lump sum of their fortunes directly into your coffers."

"Hmm?" Delita said, narrowing his eyes. His eyes flitted around from Argus to the dry ground, looking for the place that he had placed his armor. "I do remember. But why do you bring this up?"

"My family was ruined," Argus said calmly. He hid inside him a dry laugh. "At the prospect of losing what they had worked so hard for, my parents forfeited their lives and risked a permanent council in Hell because of your decree. My grandfather sold out his old noble friends who tried to hide away their fortunes in exchange for favors, and a young cadet of the Aegis Knights corps stabbed him through the back. Their ranks were taken from them, the Sadalfas family was put into ruin, and in their place, the temporary Parliament of Limberry installed a group of commoners who knew nothing of politics in positions of power, and their first order was to purge hundreds of former nobles for 'crimes against humanity'." Argus' voice was level, lacking any emotion he might have bore in his childhood. Instead, he looked ahead stoically, demanding that above all the king might pay attention to the feeling in his heart the words might stir.

"And what does this have to do with me?" Delita said instead, cocking his head back. "How does doing what must be done reflect poorly on me?"

"The idea you could bear such a prejudice against nobility simply because we were not born in shacks, because our ancestors were bred from the finest stocks over generations. This 'gentle breeding' has made us nobles who we are, and for a commoner to pass judgment on those who've lived the lives of many before them is a folly."

Delita shook his head. "What a turnabout, talking to me of 'prejudice'! I don't know what ground you think you're standing on. Look around you, Argus! I've rebuilt the world in my image, a world where I, and only I, pull the strings."

"And that is—"

"_There_," Delita interrupted loudly, absolutely, "are no tiers or classes; there are the people, and then there is me. No one will ever have to suffer from what I did ever again. The people are comforted knowing there is someone watching over them. They're tired of uncertainty, Argus. They wanted a hero and they received one. Or do you think only nobles deserve angels, is that it? Were it your choice, the working class would be nothing more than a breeding pool of slaves."

"So you were responsible for what occurred."

"I had no hand in any of your problems. What that I would ruin the family of an old friend! Tell me, why in Hell would I begrudge someone who's done nothing to harm anyone else? If your family suffered, it's no one's fault but their own, get it through your head, Argus. That's 'karma'."

Argus scoffed quietly, his face remaining impassive, resigned. "'Karma'? No, no, you see, animals lie all the time," he said. His eyes narrowed slightly as he looked at the king, the bottom half of his royal attire stained and soaking with water and mud. His figure—that which had seemed so intriguingly alien to Argus in his youth—now seemed awkward and unfit. King Delita stood upright with the air of one self-taught in learning the royal ways to carry one's self. This was a pale shadow of a king, one who stalked the halls of a dead monarch's institution and played at being a king by twisting his silhouette against the wall. And as much as he lied and tried to impress otherwise, Argus would never believe he was anything more than a sliver in the wind. "And animals roar and bite in vanity. You just wanted what you couldn't have. You shouldn't have been so ambitious."

"What happened since then, Argus? You've changed. For worse, you've changed." Delita shrugged. "Then again, haven't we all, hrm?"

"Don't you want to hear my message?"

"What message? I think you've already said—"

"An important message," Argus said. "One I should have delivered six years ago, to you and to your sister, before I was seduced by sympathy for those God cast aside, before I showed you the damned flute—" Argus pulled from a pocket of his coat the scuffed flute he held, and threw it upon the ground— "or outreached to you as if you could have understood. I didn't realize it then, but I do now. It took me a while, but yes, I did change."

"So?" Delita said, now snarling. "What is your 'message', then?"

"_'Thus always to tyrants'_," Argus quoted in monotone, as if there were no deeper meaning or thought to anything that he was saying. After all, a curse was a curse was a curse, and you couldn't scrub a good curse off all the world's walls if you had a million years. From his coat, Argus withdrew a keen bowgun, his normally steady hand trembling.

"And, a commoner should never be king," said he, and he shot.

-

**Author's Notes:** Yes, this was a strange one. Essentially, this twisted version of characters and events came from my interest in making a parody to comment on the characters without necessarily including any humor. Therefore, you have the story subtly turning things on its head: Argus, the protagonist and Delita's friend? Ramza, the quintessential family boy? And Delita, always portrayed as the uncaring bastard, parody'd! I don't think it's a parody in the strictest sense, and I probably messed up in more than I few places, but I hope you enjoyed reading it!

Also, in keeping with the twisting, changing theme, some of the names are a bit different. I don't know why I did that, but "Argus" just seems more name-y than "Algus", the Magic City of Garland now is a nifty throwback to an old FF character, etc.

Lastly, and probably most importantly, this chapter of the story comprises the beginning and the end of the story. The final chapter will be the middle. Why did I decide to mix it up like this. Well, for one, I'm a bit crazy, and two, I really didn't have time to write the middle. Hopefully it will work out well this way. The second chapter will hopefully provide the answer to the question: What made Argus change to how he really was?

Thank you for reading!


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